I'm pleased with the results of lifting weights three times a week, so far.
The timing couldn't have been better for me. Six months after giving birth, my weight had stalled out two-thirds of the way down from immediately postpartum. I had been getting frustrated seeing the same number on the scale every morning. Time for a different metric!
Watching your weight when you are strength training doesn't make a whole lot of sense unless you are an already-lean male and building muscle mass without having a bunch of fat to lose. I found a cloth tape measure in my mending kit and measured around my hip and left thigh, and wrote those measurements down. I'll come back in a month or so and see if there's any change.
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The rapidly changing numbers representing how much weight I can lift are more interesting to me. Here is the data for the worksets of my first ten workouts (weight in pounds):
|
Squat, lbs x 5 reps x 3 sets |
Overhead press, lbs x 5 reps x 3 sets |
Dumbbell Bench Press, lbs x 5 reps x 3 sets |
Deadlift, lbs x 5 reps x 1 set |
| 45 | 30 | -- | -- |
| 50 | -- | -- | 60 |
| 55 | 35 | -- | 65 |
| 60 | -- | 30 | 69 |
| 65 | 40 | -- | 73 |
| 70 | -- | 34 | 75 |
| 75 |
42 (x 4 x 1, then fail) |
-- | 77 |
| 85 | -- | 40 (x 5 x 1, then fail) | 79 |
| 90 | 42 | -- | 81 |
| 95 | -- | 34 x 8 x 3 | 84 |
On my third workout I unracked the bar from the squat rack and it felt too light. Possibly someone had switched it. I took it away and went to get a different bar from the incline bench. Nope. That was the same 45-lb bar I'd struggled to lift the first time. I really am getting noticeably stronger.
The smallest plates at the gym are 2.5 lbs, so the smallest barbell increment is 5 lbs. I can't go up 5 lbs each time in anything but the squat, and sooner or later I will hit the limit there, too. In order to increase my deadlift (and eventually, my squat) by increments that are less than five pounds, I bought a set of "micro" plates. They are eight little plates, color coded, two each in 1-lb, 3/4-lb, 1/2-pound, and 1/4-lb weights. I wrote our last name on them in gold marker pen. The microplates are necessary. Last night I tried to deadlift 85 lbs (that's the 45-lb bar plus four 10-lb plates) and couldn't. I took off the outermost pair of 10-lb plates and replaced them with two 5-lb plates, two 2.5-lb plates, and my pairs of 1-lb, 3/4-lb, and 1/4-lb plates. I deadlifted 84 lbs, no problem. That's an increment of 3 lbs over my last deadlift.
The idea is to lift a weight every time that is heavier than the last time, even if it's just a little bit heavier. But I still have an increment problem with the presses. One will resolve with time; the other, I'll probably have to solve with more gear.
First increment problem: I do overhead presses, aka shoulder presses, aka military presses, with a barbell. But I'm not yet able to press the 45-lb standard ("Olympic") bar, so I can't use my Oly-bar microplates. I have to use the fixed-weight barbells, which have a narrower-diameter bar and are pre-loaded in five-pound increments; the lightest is 25. We have a couple of two-pound wrist weights, the kind that wrap around and secure with velcro. I managed to wrap one around the center of the bar (it hits my nose on the way up and down) to go from 40 to 42. Hopefully I can use two of them, on my wrists, to press 44 next time or maybe the time after that. Then maybe I'll be able to press the 45-lb Oly bar and at that point I can use my microplates to inch up from there.
Second increment problem: I don't want to bench press with the barbell because, frankly, it scares me. You need an attentive spotter or a proper squat cage to bench press safely, i.e., without risking dropping the bar on your throat or chest. My Y, embarrassingly, has no cage. I don't want to ask the staff to spot me for several reasons (one of which is just my normal resistance against talking to people unless I have to), and Mark cannot always come with me to spot. So instead I am working with dumbbells, which are fixed-weight and come in five-pound increments, meaning that the smallest increment I can do with two dumbbells is 10 lbs. And that is not going to happen.
For the time being I'm using the pair of 2-lb wrist weights to divide that increment into 4- and 6-lb chunks, but it really isn't enough. There are microweights available for fixed-weight dumbbells, most of them weighted magnets, but our Y dumbbells are rubber-coated and the customer reviews report mixed results trying to use magnetic weights on rubber-coated dumbbells. More wrist weights would do the trick, I guess. I tried 40 (pair of 20-lb dumbbells) and couldn't do it last night, so I backed down to 34 (pair of 15-lb weights plus the pair of 2-lb wrist weights) and, since that was really too light, I did more reps per set as a temporary solution; but I would really prefer to keep the reps at three sets of five and make the weight go up every time.
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One temporarily pleasant effect is that it is inadvisable to cut calories while training. Rather, one is supposed to eat plenty of protein (rule of thumb: one gram per pound of bodyweight per day) to give your body something with which to repair and construct muscle. Accordingly I have totally abandoned my previous dietary strategy (moderate-carb, high-fat, moderate-protein) and am now eating luxurious breakfasts of three-egg omelettes with cheese and tomato, wonderful sandwiches of pita bread bulging with turkey and avocado, and fantastic dinners of steak and broccoli or poached salmon and chopped salad.
Also protein shakes post-workout. I have a nifty little sports cup with a wire-whisk ball inside for shaking the whey protein up. It tastes okay even with just water. Chocolate is better than vanilla.
But I don't think my overall calorie load is much higher than it was before, because I find I don't really want to snack much, and I cut back on bread and pasta and the like to make room for more protein. Last night when the rest of the family ate chili (made by my 10-year-old!) on spaghetti, I had mine in a bowl without the pasta, for example. Plenty of carbs in that meal anyway, what with the beans, and the watermelon we had on the side.
Overall, weight training is interesting. I have a little notebook, and there are numbers, and there is a lot of sitting around in the gym in between sets. I get to eat large cheesy omelets and red meat. Mark has joined me, so we can check each other's progress, and that's fun too. I do miss swimming (not enough time to do both), but I can put up with it for the time being.
Not yet sure what'll happen when I have to take a month off to travel, but I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
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